But I argue that we do not have convincing proof that the luckamancy spell didn't work. After all Bogroll was Lucky that the Archons didn't say anything. After all, Jaclyn would have.

Jaclyn died the prior turn. Are you saying that a luckamancy spell is able to effect events in the past, and caused Jaclyn to be the sole archon killed by the GK tower magics in preparation for it being cast in the future?

That is not what I am saying at all. I'm saying that we have proof in a number of cases where the archons prevented the coalition from being suckered by a spell. And in this one case they didn't interfere. I've just always assumed that his Luckamancy spell worked. And because it worked, the portal recognized him as a caster.

That is not what I am saying at all. I'm saying that we have proof in a number of cases where the archons prevented the coalition from being suckered by a spell. And in this one case they didn't interfere. I've just always assumed that his Luckamancy spell worked. And because it worked, the portal recognized him as a caster.

Hah, that's an interesting view. I'd always interpreted "I tried to cast luckamancy" as just a turn of phrase like wishing good luck - I never thought there was any indication that Parson *actually* cast anything or even knew how to try.

For the record though, i would side with Housellama, both in his opinions and because he tried to keep this forum focused on what it is for. Calling that cowardice is really really, um, foolish, to put it nicely.

For the record though, i would side with Housellama, both in his opinions and because he tried to keep this forum focused on what it is for. Calling that cowardice is really really, um, foolish, to put it nicely.

My apologies. I don't like for these things to happen, and I'm sorry it went as far as it did. It takes two to tango, so while I did try to keep it focused, I did continue to reply. I'll do my best in the future to avoid it

Not exactly correct. Strategy is what you want to do. Tactics is how you go about doing it.

Strategy: "Sergeant! We need to take that hill so that we can get a better view of the battle!"
Tactics: "Yes Sir! Tom, you, Dick and Harry flank left. John Doe, I want you and Jane to flank right! Jack, I want you and Jill charge straight up that hill! Now let's go!"

Strategy: Establishing a safe landing zone so that more troops can be moved.
Tactic: Marines performing a low altitude drop into the zone and clearing a block. Once they have, they call in a second drop so that they can slowly expand that perimeter until a safe LZ has been established.

Strategy: Establish stability in the region by defeating Iraq. (I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this. Merely using a familiar example.)
Tactics: Using superior air power to knock out communications and establish complete air supremacy. Using superior agility and ground firepower to outflank and outgun the army on the ground, accompanied by airstrikes.

You get the point. If you want to get general enough then sure. They both follow the same basic theories of psychology laid out by Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Musashi, Clausewitz, etc. But on an operational level, there is a big difference.

Not exactly correct. Strategy is what you want to do. Tactics is how you go about doing it.

Strategy: "Sergeant! We need to take that hill so that we can get a better view of the battle!"
Tactics: "Yes Sir! Tom, you, Dick and Harry flank left. John Doe, I want you and Jane to flank right! Jack, I want you and Jill charge straight up that hill! Now let's go!"

Strategy: Establishing a safe landing zone so that more troops can be moved.
Tactic: Marines performing a low altitude drop into the zone and clearing a block. Once they have, they call in a second drop so that they can slowly expand that perimeter until a safe LZ has been established.

Strategy: Establish stability in the region by defeating Iraq. (I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this. Merely using a familiar example.)
Tactics: Using superior air power to knock out communications and establish complete air supremacy. Using superior agility and ground firepower to outflank and outgun the army on the ground, accompanied by airstrikes.

You get the point. If you want to get general enough then sure. They both follow the same basic theories of psychology laid out by Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Musashi, Clausewitz, etc. But on an operational level, there is a big difference.

No, I can't say I get the point, really.

Don't they blend into each other, in some sense?

Strategy: Establish the superiority of Toolism by defeating Jetstone (Sidenote: how about we stick to LESS politically charged examples? Is it that hard to use an example from the webcomic about a military campaign that we all read? Or at least use something less current? You say you want to avoid it, and in the *very next post* you bring the conversation back to Iraq.)
Strategy? Tactics?: Take the cities that are in between your current army in Unaroyal and the Jetstone Capital of Spacerock and then Spacerock.
Strategy? Tactics?: Take cities along the way using infantry and siege-heavy armies led by your ground-capable warlords, while keeping your dwagons hidden; then, take Spacerock by air after they withdraw their army and prepare for a ground assault.
Tactics: Warlords Tom, Dick, and Harry will lead the assault on Progrock, with support from Jill's Siege. At Spacerock, Jane and John will lead max stacks of purples while... [and so on and so forth].

I'm just not sure how to make the distinction - goals are achieved by subgoals, which are further split up into subgoals, which are further split up into subgoals, and so on and so forth. You make the distinction that "Strategy is what you want to do. Tactics is how you go about doing it. " But it seems like most things that you WANT to do, are things you want to do BECAUSE they're part of the plan of HOW you want to do something else. And vice versa - if you decide HOW you're going to do things, a series of steps, you or someone else now has to drill one level deeper and figure out how you're going to do the steps that you WANT to do. Not everything, of course - there's certainly an uppermost level and probably a lowermost level - but most things seem like they'd be in the middle.

We can even take my example one level up - at the end of the day, what Wanda WANTS to do is unite the arkentools. Does that mean that every decision she makes in the course of the campaign for Jetstone is now a tactical one rather than a strategic one? Because taking Jetstone is just how she's deciding to go about that uniting?

And you can take the example one level down, too - Tom, Dick, and Harry will each be deciding how to order individual units, as in your example #1.

In your first example that seems like it would work too. One person's strategy (take the hill) is another person's tactics (why do they want to take the hill? Presumably because of it's usefulness for achieving something else, such as knocking out communications or establishing air supremacy.)

They do. They work on the same principles. I make a distinction. Other people may not. The distinction I see and make is on the operational level. Tactics are what happens on the battlefield. Strategy is what goes on in the map room and what the policy makers talk about.

I'm just not sure how to make the distinction - goals are achieved by subgoals, which are further split up into subgoals, which are further split up into subgoals, and so on and so forth. You make the distinction that "Strategy is what you want to do. Tactics is how you go about doing it. " But it seems like most things that you WANT to do, are things you want to do BECAUSE they're part of the plan of HOW you want to do something else.

Despite our recent disagreement, I'm with HL on this one. Strategy is the goal, tactics is how you achieve the goal. His examples were all valid.

ftl wrote:

In your first example that seems like it would work too. One person's strategy (take the hill) is another person's tactics (why do they want to take the hill? Presumably because of it's usefulness for achieving something else, such as knocking out communications or establishing air supremacy.)

In this example, you're right, but not in the context. The general officers want to knock out communications or establish air supremacy. Even more correctly, the general officers want to do those things in order to support the top level strategy: Win the war. The lieutenant wants to take the hill as a contribution to the greater strategy. As you point out, the smaller strategies do tend to add up to a greater strategy, but that doesn't make the smaller goals any less strategic when implemented at the local level. If I've made sense at all...

As a business example, consider the Theory of Constraints, which shows (the wiki entry is very high level, and does not directly example strategy and tactics) the various levels of strategy and tactics. A company may have as a strategy "make money", while the IT department may have as a strategy "provide IT as a service to the business", and a marketing department may have as a strategy "effectively communicate our products and services to potential customers." Left unstated at the end of each departmental strategy statement is "in order to better facilitate the company strategy." Each department has a strategy, and all of them (should) feed into the overall strategy of the company. And each department will have tactics for how to accomplish their diverse strategies.

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